Cedar tree rings archive Amazon rainfall data

Oct 01, 2012

University of Leeds-led research has used tree rings from eight cedar trees in Bolivia to unlock a 100-year history of rainfall across the Amazon basin, which contains the world's largest river system.

The new study shows that the rings in lowland tropical cedar trees provide a natural archive of data closely related to historic rainfall.

Researchers measured the amounts of two different oxygen isotopes trapped in the wood's rings: oxygen-16 and the heavier oxygen-18. By looking at the varying amounts of the two isotopes, they could see how the pattern of rainfall changed year by year. This allowed them to see how much it rained over the Amazon basin over the past century.

The lead author of the study, Dr Roel Brienen from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, said: "We already knew that some tropical tree species form annual rings and we also anticipated that the isotopic signature in these rings might record changes in the climate.

"What surprised us, however, is that just eight trees from one single site actually tell us how much it rained not just at that site but over the entire Amazon catchment. That is an area about 25 times the size of the UK. The isotope values recorded in tree rings were very closely related to annual variation in the river levels of the Amazon, and thus of the amount of rainfall that flows into the ocean."

The Amazon basin is among the richest natural ecosystems in the world, containing about one tenth of the planet's biodiversity and one fifth of the carbon stored in plant biomass. It is also among the wettest places in the world; about one fifth of the global land precipitation falls in the Amazon basin and drains into the Atlantic Ocean through the world's biggest river.

Because of its vast size and location along the equator, the response of the hydrological cycle of the Amazon basin to climate change may significantly affect the magnitude and speed of climate change for the entire globe. It is therefore important to gain a better understanding of its hydrological cycle.

Co-author Dr Manuel Gloor, also at the University of Leeds, said: "Climate models vary widely in their predictions for the Amazon, and we still do not know whether the Amazon will become wetter or dryer in a warmer world. We discovered a very powerful tool to look back into the past, which allows us to better understand the magnitude of natural variability of the system."

"In a similar way that annual layers in polar ice sheets have been used to study past temperatures, we are now able to use tree rings of this species as a natural archive for precipitation over the Amazon basin. If we find older trees with similar signal strength then this will greatly help us to advance our knowledge of the system."

Dr Brienen added: "The record is so sensitive that simply from the isotope values we can say which year we are looking at. For example, the extreme El Niño year of 1925-26 which caused very low river levels, clearly stands out in the record."

Although the century-long record provided by the trees is relatively short, some interesting trends are evident.

"The oxygen isotope series shows an increase over time, which may be due to an intensification of the hydrological cycle," said Dr Gloor. "That could also explain the observed long-term trend in river discharge. We need however to replicate this research at different places in the Amazon to really be able to say more."

The study is published online in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

More information: RJW Brienen et al, 'Oxygen isotopes in tree rings are a good proxy for Amazon precipitation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability', is published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. (2012) doi/10.1073/pnas.1205977109

Related Stories

Nibbling by herbivores can have a greater impact on the width of tree rings than climate, new research has found. The study, published this week in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology, could ...

Geoscientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Minnesota this week published the first evidence that warm-cold climate oscillations well known in the Northern Hemisphere over ...

Contrary to common belief, Brazil's policy of protecting portions of the Amazonian forest from development is capable of buffering the Amazon from climate change, according to a new study led by Michigan State University ...

The Amazon is surprisingly sensitive to drought, according to new research conducted throughout the world's largest tropical forest. The 30-year study, published today in Science, provides the first solid evidence that d ...

The ocean is a large reservoir of dissolved organic molecules, and many of these molecules are stable against microbial utilization for hundreds to thousands of years. They contain a similar amount of carbon ...

The fires superimposed on the satellite image of southeastern Australia designated by red spots may be indicative of "planned burns" by the Victoria region. This map: http://www.depi.vic.gov.au/fire-and-emergencies/planned-burns/planned-burns-now-and-next-10-days found on the Department of the Environment and Primary Industries for the State of Victoria shows the burns th ...

NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Typhoon Maysak as it strengthened into a super typhoon on March 31, reaching Category 5 hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. The TRMM and GPM satellites, ...

An international research team, led by a Virginia Tech geoscientist, has revealed information about how continents were generated on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago—and how those processes have continued ...

The 2010 eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull grounded thousands of air flights and spread ash over much of western Europe, yet it was puny compared to the eruption 200 years ago of Tambora, ...

User comments : 1

You're telling me that 8 trees that were growing in a locality show the rainfall for the entire rainforest...

Have these people ever even been to the Amazon??? When I was there it would rain under the canopy, and it would be intermittent. The Amazon is so large, and the terrain is not flat. The weather systems rarely if ever have equal distribution. The only thing that is ever distributed equally is the water table.

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.